The present invention relates to gaming devices in general and, more specifically, to portable gaming devices suitable for use in gaming establishments such as casinos and bingo halls.
In recent years, radio-controlled hand-held or portable electronic bingo devices, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,455,025 and 4,624,462 both to Itkis and in bingo industry publications, including an article “Bingo Playing Enhanced With New Innovations”, Bingo Manager, July, 2001, gained substantial popularity in casinos However, electronic bingo devices have been used as player “aids” rather than actual gaming devices such as slot machines. The main reason traditional gaming devices have not made their way into a wireless casino network has been concern for security and verification. As in all sensitive communication, there are always three concerns: (1) Authentication, (2) Integrity and (3) Nonrepudiation. Schneider, Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, and Source Code n C, 1995 Wiley, John & Sons at 2. In the bingo context, portable units have been used only to automatically or semi-automatically daub called numbers on a multiplicity of electronic facsimilies of bingo cards from a closed universe of bingo card permutations. Security of radio transmission of called numbers is of little concern since these data are public. On the other hand, a portable, wireless slot machine would require absolute authentication, assurance of integrity of signals and no credible way for a player to repudiate that she placed a losing bet.
Portable remote gaming devices have been proposed for playing “classic” casino games such as poker, slots and keno. In particular, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,012,983 and 6,001,016 both issued to Walker, et al., propose to utilize pager-like devices for remote monitoring of the progress of a slot game executed automatically on a player's behalf on an actual slot machine available at a “casino warehouse.” However, Walker limits play to passive observation of the game and, therefore, diminishes a player's interest in the game. Walker's approach requires a costly investment in real slot machines located remotely at a “casino warehouse.” A commercial implementation of remote playing on a “warehoused” slot machine by GameCast Live as disclosed in “Expanding Casino Borders”, International Gaming and Wagering Business, September 2001, suffers from the same deficiencies as Walker's disclosures. Moreover, although GameCast Live offers players convincing video and audio data streams originating at video cameras aimed at actual slot machines, such implementation is labor intensive and requires costly hardware. In addition, such an approach cannot provide a casino with an adequate number (e.g., several hundred) of remote wagering devices since the overall radio frequency (RF) bandwidth available for a casino is severely limited.
On the other hand, a cellular telephone-based approach to remote gaming being promoted by companies, such as Motorola, Inc., TRIMON Systems, Inc. and NuvoStudios, Inc., as disclosed, for example, in “NuvoStudios, Inc., Corporate Profile”, NuvoStudios, Inc., October 2001 and “Mobile Casino Solution”, TRIMON Systems, Inc., October 2001, does alleviate the issue of available radio frequency bandwidth. Yet, remote gaming on cellular telephones is functionally indistinguishable from gaming on the Internet. Although casinos are tempted by the lucrative prospects of Internet gaming, such as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,800,268 to Molnick, 5,999,808 to La Due and 5,779,545 to Berg et al., the disclosed Internet wagering techniques cannot be directly transplanted into casino environment because of the vast differences between the security and integrity requirements of “brick-and-mortar” casinos and “click-and-mortar” casinos.
In a casino environment, the casino must be certain that wireless commands received are authentic, and attributable to the player sending the signal. The casino must further be confident that interference, accidental or deliberate, cannot cause an error, and can be documented. The casino must also be confident that a player cannot maintain an argument that she did not place a losing bet. The player of a wireless wagering device in a casino must be certain that no third party could gamble with her money, that wireless signals she sends to the casino are accurately interpreted and executed, and that the casino cannot falsely deny that a winning bet was placed.